


not drastically better

by musicspeakstoo



Category: DCU (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Apocalypse, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-07
Updated: 2017-01-07
Packaged: 2018-09-15 14:17:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 981
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9238682
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/musicspeakstoo/pseuds/musicspeakstoo
Summary: He doesn’t mean to bring the kid along, in the beginning.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I have been unmotivated about writing things that I want to write so I figured that posting an old drabble of mine might help kickstart that motivation. If not, I liked this story anyway. Written for a prompt given to me on tumblr: bruce/dick apocalypse fic. Title from an asofterworld post.

He doesn’t mean to bring the kid along, in the beginning. It’s just that this was back when people were still dying in hospitals and makeshift medical centers instead of where they stood. Bruce is almost grateful he’d lost his parents years ago to a mugging. Anything but this. 

The boy, no older than nine, is kneeling in a chair between the bodies of his parents when Bruce first meets him. He doesn’t know if it’s this image, the view reminiscent of what he must have looked like, kneeling in that dirty alley, or if it’s the way the kid’s face still has a sweetness to it, even tearstained, that has him talking to the kid, convincing him to follow Bruce on his journey.

The kid’s name is Dick, which is probably short for Richard, but seems too big for a kid that small. He’s willing enough to go along with Bruce’s search for Alfred, Bruce’s butler and pseudo-father. It makes Bruce wary and he waits for the day the kid decides he’s had enough of Bruce’s paranoia, his inability to resist helping a person in need. There are settlements, now. People who are trying to slow down the progression of whatever this thing is.

Bruce waits a long time.

Dick grows up. He grows up strong and charismatic, with the kind of optimism Bruce isn’t sure he himself ever had. Dick grows up _beautiful_ and the day Bruce realizes this is the day he starts pushing him away. They’ve been together for seven years, Bruce is thankful that the world has still managed to hold itself together enough to keep time, and he wouldn’t change a single day, not even those nights when things were bad and they nearly starved. He does regret keeping the boy so isolated, though. It’s not like they’re the sole survivors, and after a few years there was no reason to keep Dick on a short leash, not when there’d be people to look out for him.

They’ve created a little network from the people they’ve met in their travels; people like Babs who are also looking for loved ones, or like Clark and his kids who are genuinely trying to improve the world. There’s Jason and Tim, who gained more than they lost when the sickness spread.

Dick had gotten along rather well with Roy, and while communication is somewhat spotty, Bruce knows that he’s settled in what used to be Star City. He tries to push Dick in that direction, when he finds himself starting to stare. The hurt on Dick’s face cuts him like nothing has since he started his search. But worse still is imagining the horror and disgust on Dick’s face if he ever found out about Bruce’s longing. He convinces Dick that he’s better off with Roy, trying to reorganize the cities, or transporting supply shipments like Diana and her sisters.

“Do you not want me around anymore?” Dick asks one night, after they’d wasted precious daylight screaming at each other.

“That’s not it at all,” he’d replied, because Bruce couldn’t lie to him about that.

“Then, what is it?” Dick had pleaded.

At that, Bruce had turned away, muttering about needing more food and unable to answer him without lying to his face again.

He’s been at this for a year and a half, pushing Dick further away and closing himself off, fighting with Dick even more, trying to convince him to leave without having to order him to. One day, they manage to find a place to stay and potable water for bathing and Dick catches Bruce staring hungrily at his bare chest. Dick’s face widens in understanding and Bruce flinches back, closes his eyes and waits for the punch. He’d taught Dick everything he knew about fighting, so he expects he’ll lose a tooth.

Dick kisses him, impossibly soft. Bruce’s eyes fly open and he looks at Dick’s face, still so full of the sweetness it contained when Bruce had found him, newly orphaned. 

“You could have said something, you know.” Dick takes Bruce’s clenched fist in his hands.

Bruce swallows thickly, “I… there was... I didn’t want to lose you.”

Dick smiles, always reminding Bruce of the sun, “I followed you the moment I lost my parents, Bruce, when you were just a man desperate to find his last surviving family member. I haven’t left you for more than a month once in the past nine years.”

“That was kind of the problem,” Bruce admitted.

Dick sighed, “Yeah, it worried me too, at first. When I was thirteen and realized you were the most gorgeous person I had ever seen. But I’ve come to accept that my feelings for you are real and natural, you didn’t coerce me into anything.”

He looks Bruce straight in the eye as he says this and Bruce only has so much strength. He kisses Dick, deeply and with every drop of want he’s felt for the past couple years. Bruce brings Dick back to the room they’re renting and though it’s been awhile since he’s had sex, too consumed with thoughts of his companion, he makes love to him, treats him like the precious thing he is. Dick is as beautiful in his pleasure as he is in everything else and any chance Bruce had of passing this off as a one-time occurrence evaporates. There’s no way he could give this small sliver of happiness so easily.

After, Bruce pulls Dick close to him and strokes his hair until the boy falls asleep. It’s been so long since they’d slept together, Bruce having separated himself as Dick entered puberty. He hadn’t realized how much he missed the boy’s soft breathing and the feel of a warm body next to him. Bruce lets sleep take him knowing that, as always, the search will be waiting for them when they wake.


End file.
